Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will meet next month, the Kremlin has said, as the leaders look to strengthen their relationship amid the war in Iran.
Russian sources said the meeting would be during the week of May 18, a matter of days after Donald Trump, the US president, is alsoexpected to visit Beijingfor a delayed summit with Mr Xi.
Moscow promised to boost energy supplies to China before the meeting to “compensate” for China’s energy shortages as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains choked by the Iran war.
The Trump-Xi summit is being viewed as an effort to reset US-China relations.
However, a continuing US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz risks further straining their relationship. China is heavily reliant on the strait for oil deliveries, with as much as 40 per cent of its imports coming via the waterway.
Mr Xi made his first public comments on the war on Tuesday with a thinly veiledswipe at Mr Trump, after the US navy turned back a Chinese tanker. He said that the world could not risk reverting “to the law of the jungle”.
Beijing has alsocalled the US military operation“dangerous and irresponsible”.
Wang Yi, Mr Xi’s foreign minister, called on his Pakistani counterpart to “preserve the hard-won momentum” after negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad broke down over the weekend without an agreement.
In recent weeks, Beijing has taken a more active role in diplomacy to make the ceasefire agreed between Iran, Israel and the US permanent.
Chinese officials are understood to have pressured their Iranian counterparts to agree to the two-week ceasefire with the Americans.
Access to the route, which carries one-fifth of the world’s energy shipments, was initially restricted by Iran but is now subject to a US blockade aimed at starving Tehran’s oil income.
Until now, China has publicly adopted a neutral stance on the war in Iran, as it carefully balances its ties with Tehran and manages any tensions with Washington.
But behind the scenes, reports indicateBeijing is helping Tehran, a close ally of Moscow, in its war with the US and Israel.
The Financial Times, citing leaked documents, said Iran secretly used a Chinese spy satellite to target US bases in the Middle East.
US intelligence also indicated that China was preparing an arms shipment to Iran.
Mr Trump said in an interview that aired on Wednesday that he had asked Mr Xi not to supply weapons to Tehran, and that Mr Xi replied saying he was not doing so.
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“I had heard that China’s giving weapons to, I mean – you’re seeing it all over the place – to Iran,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Fox Business. “And I wrote him a letter asking him not to do that, and he wrote me a letter saying that essentially he’s not doing that.”
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he added later that “China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz”. He said: “They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran,” suggesting the two are linked.
The president also confirmed he is still planning to visit next month. “President Xi will give me a big, fat hug when I get there in a few weeks,” he said. “We are working together smartly, and very well!”
The world’s two most powerful economies had been attempting to rebuild relations, with Mr Trump’s planned visit in four weeks expected to be a key moment in those efforts.
It is not certain how the US president will be received if his blockade on Iranian oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz is still ongoing.
China’s foreign minister has described it as a “targeted blockade” which “will only aggravate confrontation, escalate tension, under the already fragile cease-fire and further jeopardise safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz”.
Keeping China onside could be crucial to Mr Trump’s promise to end the war in Iran.
For decades, Beijing has acted as an important lifeline for Tehran, purchasing the bulk of its oil exports, delivering weapons and shielding the Islamic Republic from international isolation.
Mr Xi’s influence over the Iranians could be used to urge them to be more flexible in their refusal to accept American demands over their nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
But it is also seen as crucial for the US to keep Beijing from forging stronger alliances with Russia, as Mr Trumpaims to end the long-running warin Ukraine.
Relations between China and Russia have deepened in recent years, particularly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Mr Xi said on Wednesday that the “stability” and “certainty” of China-Russia relations had become particularly valuable.
Western officials argue that Putin would not have been able to continue his invasion into a fifth year without economic support from China.
Instead, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has been seized on by Russia. Its foreign minister has argued that Moscow and Beijing should work together more closely to weather any disruption to the global energy markets.
Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday during his visit to China: “Thank God, China and Russia have every capability, including those already in use, reserve capacity and planned capacity, to avoid depending on such aggressive gambits, which undermine the global economy.
“Russia can, of course, make up for the resource shortfall facing both China and other countries that are interested in working with us on an equal and mutually beneficial basis.”
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Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will meet next month, the Kremlin has said, as the leaders look to strengthen their relationship amid the...
